In highway travel, the driver must keep an eye on the traffic following the car as well. Series-produced vehicles currently use rear-view mirrors (on the inside and outside of the vehicle) for this purpose.
Rear-view cameras are furthermore employed in increasing numbers for assistance in parking maneuvers. In the US, such cameras have even become mandatory for new vehicles in the meantime. However, the rear-view camera is presently activated only when the reverse gear is engaged.
The option of replacing the conventional outside mirrors with a combination of camera and display also is a topic of discussion at trade fairs and in studies. Not only is this meant to decrease the aerodynamic drag of the vehicle, but it additionally also offers a platform for further innovations.
Also still in the exploratory stage is the use of augmented reality representations. Here, the real image or a video image of a real scene is supplemented by artificial objects in order to supply the driver with additional information in a contact-analogous manner.
To monitor the lateral control of the vehicle, driver assistants which sense the road markings and output a warning signal if these markings are crossed have been introduced on the market. To do so, the distance from the left and right road markings is sensed on a permanent basis.
The printed publication German Published Patent Application No. 10 2009 020 300 A1 describes a method for representing an automatically detected surrounding region of a vehicle. A virtual road plane is generated for this purpose, which includes road delimitations sensed by an object detection device. Furthermore, the virtual road plane may include additionally detected objects such as people located on the road. The virtual road plane can ultimately be output to the driver, for instance with the aid of a head-up display.
The printed publication German Published Patent Application No. 10 2009 045 471 A1 describes a method for the display of information. It is stated that information to be superposed in a visual region of the driver can be projected within an interior or exterior mirror, for example. Augmented reality displays are possible as well. A head position of the driver is taken into account in all cases according to this printed publication, so that parallax shifting between the superimposed information and a viewing direction of the driver can be compensated.